The first flight of the 12m Hyperlink V1 yesterday on the beach in almost no wind was quite impressive, with very little effort I
was able to fly it in 360° circles around myself (see video).

This made me very keen on the first actual test riding it on the water with my hydrofoil. Today was looking good, but then it was actually way too windy to make sense of a first test of the
Hyperlink in 9 or 12m which are the two sizes that are available so far.

Instead I went for the very well powered 7m Edge V9 to do a nice 50km exploration ride. Back home after dinner I was still stoked of that session, but had the feeling I did not accomplish the
goal of the day to get a first actual riding impression of the Hyperlink. After checking weather maps again a quick decision was made to give it another try. Arriving on the beach it was still
windy, but a big dark cloud seemed to have quite some influence. A little later the decision was made to pick the 12m Hyperlink as the wind was supposed to drop before darkness.

I expected it to be quite powerful. which it was, but in a very smooth and easy to handle way. I could have easily been on a way smaller kite, but it was no problem at all to be sporting the 12m
Hyperlink.

From the start the Hyperlink felt very predictable, absolutely stable despite some gusts and lulls, a very nice good and safe feeling especially when testing a new foil kite during sunset which
isn't really the most comfortable time to risk a swim back home. But any thought about potentially dropping the kite was washed away as soon as it was airborne. The Hyperlink feels almost
impossible to drop/fall out of the sky without doing... who knows what. And if it possibly would, I got a confident feeling about its relaunchability. This is just guessing at this point though,
which I want to leave out of this report really. I would have tested it if the sun wouldn't have been on the horizon already. It will follow in next sessions to come.

Back to what I actually experienced.

I was using the Moses Comet hydrofoil which is the race foil of the Moses range and has very high-aspect ratio wings. In theory not really the preferred match for a lower aspect thicker profile
kite, but it was what I had mounted and ready to go and had been using the most the last sessions.

When diving the kite to get going and up on the foil the power delivery is very smooth, it does not have an extreme power spike like the R1 or the Edge, but the constant solid power is good to go
too, just quite different to what I am used to. It possibly is a characteristic that suits a bit longer lines better, especially in lower powered situations, but again this is something to find
out in another session still. While mentioning line length, all flying and riding was done using a 55cm bar with 14m lines (which is my main line length for any kite at the moment). On the first
leg it was immediately obvious that the Hyperlink sits deeper in the window than my other kites mentioned before, but still pulls the hydrofoil upwind in an angle that does feel good.

Then the first few roll-tacks it was about getting to know the characteristics of the Hyperlink a bit better. Here again it does not deliver the same power spikes as the R1 or also the Edge, but
just solid smooth power delivery. Being used to something different I did not manage to keep flying through the first tacks, also the high-aspect race wings of the Moses Comet did not help with
this.

But then a few approaches later with adjusted riding speed into the maneuvers and a little different timing I started to keep the board out of the water on most roll-tacks, it actually started to
feel quite easy and natural, the same for jibes with a downloop from the first one, easy, smooth, natural. While saying that, I can not wait to ride the Hyperlink paired with a lower aspect-ratio
wing set, like the Moses Fluente or Levitaz Cruizer, which I assume to be an exceptional good match which would also make roll-tacks super easy due to more lift of the hydrofoil's wing when
coming out of the maneuver at lower speed. I would almost already go as far as saying that it is the kite that I have used that makes hydrofoil maneuvers the most accessible.

I think that's it for now, super fun first session, can not wait to get more time hydrofoiling with the Hyperlink in different conditions, different sizes and combined with different hydrofoil
wing configurations.

Don't want to hype it before getting to know it way better overall, but my initial feeling is that this could be a very good hydrofoiling kite choice for a lot of people.